THERE was yet another tribute to the late Queen Mother in last week's Citizen.

She has been paid every honour -- except beautification. Can we now let her and those of us whose days are occupied with other matters rest in peace or get on with life?

Outside this island of ours, there is enough sorrow, desperation, poverty and warfare to keep our minds' focused on the truly needy of the world.

Many grandmothers have had to stand helplessly by as husbands, sons and grandsons were killed in wars of attrition, blood is shed for a few square miles of arid desert land, daughters and granddaughters have been captured, raped and killed in blood ?

They need our compassion and the practical help this rich country of ours (yes, rich) can give.

Let us be aware of the 40 per cent of children, with all their adult lives before them, who have no hope of even a primary school education.

They may live out their lives unable to read or write, as grandmothers before them in sub-Saharan Africa.

These people need help and quickly. And yet our country can stand still, silent and morning as an old lady, rich and respected throughout her life, island to rest. Flowers surrounding the walls if her sumptuous home, shops closed ad the pageantry of our finest armed forces parade through the capital city, a cathedral bell tolls the number of her years and people cry.

Far away -- too far for us to be aware -- other grandmothers wait in grief as the bodies of their families are pulled from the rubble of Palestinian homes, or watch as young people, blown to pieces in a cafe or a bus queue, are carted away to the mosque for identification, in Israel.

There is something wrong, surely, if we can expend our care and our grief on one old lady, whose life was lived in luxury and whose personal extravagance was legendary, while we conveniently ignore the real needs of other old ladies whose families die in needless poverty and want.

Mildred Ford, Lulworth Place, Walton-le-Dale, Preston.